


Blood on my/your hands

by knightinpinkunderwear



Series: I told you that I don't have a soul [8]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Assisted Suicide, Autopsies, Blackouts, Blood, Character Death, Death, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Guilt, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Memory Loss, Mind Control, POV Third Person Limited, Pain, Sad, Sad Ending, Season/Series 05, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, no happy ending, s5e04: Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-20 10:06:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17620424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: Set in 5x04.





	Blood on my/your hands

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this might be triggering if you have suicidal thoughts or are in a bad place mentally and/or emotionally. 
> 
> Please proceed with caution, I don't actually want anyone to be harmed by this in anyway. And it's perfectly alright to have boundaries on what you can and can't healthily ingest as media. Take care of yourself.

 

After giving Nygma the file, Lucius didn't expect to see him again. Thought hed take another route to the ground and continue hunting for whatever information that Blackgate inmate 1215 would give him. 

But he came running down the same staircase. Lucius heard him trip and collide with a wall. 

"Lucius! Lucius!" he stopped and turned. If he kept going Nygma would no doubt just cause himself more harm. "There's an apartment across the street! Old woman in it, she could've seen who did it!" Edward was huffing, out of breath, but Lucius was more concerned on why Nygma wanted to keep helping after getting what he wanted. Maybe he missed the detective work his life had revolved around from his time at the GCPD. Or maybe he really did want the culprit caught and punished. 

Either way, Lucius was glad to learn that Edward had some morals. (Or at least thought the deaths of so many innocent people was a waste, if not a tragedy.) It was proof that Edward had compassion for others and was not as insane and withdrawn from sane civilian life as Lucius first thought. It was refreshing to be surprised by people being more compassionate than he expected. It was nice to find people that genuinely did not enjoy the deaths of 300+ refugees. It was refreshing to find someone he expected to have poor moral character not be complacent in this tragedy. If only he could be surprised like this from the Government. 

The trek up eleven flights of stairs to get to the woman Edward saw was a bit tiring. Much more so for his companion. Nygma hunched over, wheezing as soon as they'd reached the 12th floor. 

"I hate stairs!" Lucius resisted the chuckle that tried to bubble past his definitely not smiling lips. "1215?" Lucius turned to the sign. Apartment 1215 was the one that Edward saw the woman in. ANd he'd been asking for inmate 1215...odd coincidence. It must be a good day for multiples of three that split into multiples of three. After shrugging away the coincidence he approached the door and knocked, Edward hovering slightly behind him. It took a moment of waiting for the door to open. The woman had intense makeup and sat in a wheelchair. Though Lucius would never say this out loud, the woman did not seem to know how to balance the colors or techniques of her makeup well. She almost resembled a clown or puppet. 

"Oh no! Please don't hurt me!" the woman shouted with a shrill shriek... when she saw Nygma. She slammed the door closed. 

"What was that about?"

"I-" Edward looked pained, "I don't know. I don't remember ever seeing her before today."

"Well, she sure thinks she knows you, and that you would hurt her."

"I've been having blackouts, I fall asleep and I wake up somewhere else and I have no idea how I got there and what happened in-between." Interesting, and not very good news. The fact that Nygma seemed to be telling the truth was both a comfort and 

"So, there's a possibility that you threatened this woman," 

"I don't know, maybe?" There was a vulnerability in that. From what Lucius knew of Nygma, knowledge was his power, one of the ways he could be in control. Not knowing something was as close to admitting he didn't have control. That he was vulnerable. 

"Ma'am, we just want to ask you a few questions, I promise that Ed won't hurt you." 

"He won't?"

"No, we just want to know what you saw last night," Lucius knew how to do this, calming people was a thing he had practice in, especially if they were willing to listen. The door opened a little. 

"I saw your friend on the roof over there, he had some sort of rocket and he shot that building and then everything was fire!" 

Oh. 

Oh no. 

Lucius turned to Nygma. 

But he wasn't smug. He wasn't calculating or cool. He wasn't suave. He wasn't showing off or proud. He looked...

 _horrified_. 

"It was him I swear!" The woman screeched, pointing at Nygma, who flinched away. His eyes were wet and he was shaking. He looked shocked, like he didn't know. Maybe he hadn't, not until now. Lucius was starting to wonder what other things he'd been doing in his sleep. How many other lives had Edward snuffed and not known about? Why didn't he know? 

"No, I wouldn't! Why-why would I?!" He didn't seem to know the answer, there wasn't much of a word that could describe his voice at that moment. It was desperate and pained and lost.

"You killed them!" Lucius didn't see the vase until it was flying past him, straight at Nygma. Edward fell, he hadn't been paying attention. It smashed against his forehead and his head his the wall behind him. He crumpled, knees up to his chin and hands clutching at his temples like they'd been before, only this time there was glass and blood. 

"Why!? _Why did I?_ There has to be a _reason_ \- I _wouldn't_ -!" He wasn't talking to be heard, just to hear himself, to put a voice to how he felt about it. The woman slammed her door shut. Edward didn't seem to notice, he didn't seem to care much about his surroundings. "Why did I? I killed them!" 

"Ed, is it true or-"

"I did it!" He sobbed, and it wasn't a trick. There was no wicked smile, no riddles, no laughter. He sobbed and babbled. Lucius was torn. Most of him was screaming, angry. Nygma had killed 311+ people. 18 were still missing. Around 30 wounded. Nygma did it. They were innocent people and they were all dead or suffering because of him.  

 

They only get down two floors. Nygma, Edward runs to an open door. Lucius follows. And he regrets it. Nygma has a gun. Lucius feels stupid for a second, sure that the woman and this building were all part of a scheme. 

But it isn't.

Edward was pointing the wrong end of the gun at him. 

"Shoot me." 

It's a simple demand, in a verbal sense, not so much in a moral or ethical sense. Every other time Lucius has seen him hold a gun he was shakier, his hands were still trembling, but they somehow seemed a little steadier. He approaches, grabbing one of Lucius' hands and bringing it to the gun. 

"I did it. I've killed hundreds of people and who knows how many more will die because of me...you have to kill me."

"Ed-"

"I can't do it myself, I think that if I try I'll just hurt you and tie up the loose-end two floors above us." Edward's eyes are red, tears fat and ignored, sitting, just ready to spill over his dark lashes. And down his face. He doesn't look like he's eaten or slept at any regular interval. He looks awful, but sure and steadfast in his decision. 

Nothing hurt worse than looking into the eyes of someone who wanted to die. 

"You have to kill me, that's the only way this ends. I am not in control of my actions and I've hurt a lot of people." Lucius feels his other hand being placed around the pistols grip. "Please?" This comes as a whisper. And it hurts. 

"You don't have to die-" oh no. His eyes were stinging. Why did he have to care so much? Nygma was a killer, he'd confessed to so many. There was so much blood on his hands. Didn't Lucius have a responsibility to prevent future loss of life here and now? Why did he have to care about people he shouldn't? Why couldn't it be easier to stop seeing a human when he looked in a killer's eyes? 

He knew the answer. 

Because it was Ed. Because Ed knew it was wrong. Because part of him seemed to have wanted to get better. Because that part has died and the rest of him thinks that death is the only way to keep others safe. And it hurts. 

"That's a nice thought. The last time I entertained it, I tricked myself into releasing Riddler...I'm not sure who I am now, which one, maybe both? Either way, if I get a way out I'll go back to hurting and killing. I'll do it again." It was amazing how Edward could have so little faith in himself, how resigned he was to his own violence. How he decided death was the safest route. "There's so much blood on my hands, I won't let them be bloodied further... Please?" 

Lucius wanted to put the gun down, but Edward was still holding it in place, in both of their hands. "Lucius," his voice was almost gentle, "it was self-defense, I came at you with this knife-" Edward pulls a blade from his pocket and let's it fall to the floor. "It was self-defense, you had to, a convicted murderer was trying to attack you, you didn't have a choice," Edward steps closer, holding the barrel of the gun, it's pressed flush against his chest. The bullet will rip straight through his ribcage and his heart and tear through the other side. 

Edward's hands aren't shaking anymore, it's his. 

"You had to kill me, I didn't give you a choice." 

Lucius didn't remember pulling the trigger. But he remembers every instant after it. 

How Edward's eyes widen and glaze over almost instantly. How there's just the tiniest of gasps. How his fingers are limp and he crumbles to the floor, his grip on the gun the last piece of him to go. Edward didn't last two seconds. He was dead. 

And Lucius' hands are shaking. 

Then he's kneeling at the corpse's side. How quickly life left Edward Nygma. He tries to stop the bleeding, but he knows there's no pulse. No pulse without a heart. His hands are stained, red clinging to them. It hurts. 

Edward's gaze is blank. 

Lucius radios Harvey. 

He finds himself speaking Edward's words. "He attacked me, I didn't have a choice. He killed Haven." Both Jim and Harvey seem as disgusted and horrified with that truth. Like they both thought they knew what Edward Nygma's moral boundaries were. They hadn't thought the worst of him. 

The autopsy hurts. It's worse when he finds barely healed stitches, everywhere beneath the unkempt hair. 

There was a chip in his brain. It was strategically placed. Someone had made Edward do it. 

And the blood on his hands doesn't wash away, it clings to his fingernails and cuticles, it clings to his knuckles and fingerprints. It clings to his body, it clings to his soul. 

The blood on his hands is for nothing. 

Ed was not really to blame. 

His death would not stop the deaths of others. 

His death would not save others. 

And there was blood on his hands, innocent of the crime Lucius killed him for. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I would say I'm sorry but... y'know... the soulless thing.
> 
>  
> 
> If I triggered you, I am sorry, I hope that you feel better and if you want me to add any tags so that this doesn't happen again please let me know.


End file.
